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The Como Mamas, Get an Understanding…

2013 | Label: Daptone Records / The Orchard

By Ashley Melzer eMusic Contributor

03.30.13 Ester Mae Smith and sisters Angela Taylor and Della Daniels have been singing together since childhood, but the way their voices blend sounds much older: singing a cappella at Mt. Mariah Baptist Church in Como, Mississippi, the women harness a stripped-down sincerity. In their voices, God is taken off the pedestal and put in arms’ reach.

“Now let us all go back to that old landmark,” the women sing on the first track of Get an Understanding…, an invitation by a gospel trio molded in the land of the blues. “God… more »

The Relatives, The Electric Word

2013 | Label: Yep Roc Records / Redeye

By Richard Gehr eMusic Contributor

02.19.13 Gospel singer Rev. Gean West and his brother Rev. Tommie formed The Relatives in the early ’70s and disbanded by 1980, but their electrifying, innovative gospel-soul hybrid finally saw the light of day when their early singles and unreleased sessions were compiled on 2009′s Don’t Let Me Fall. The lo-fi glory of those recordings is now utterly fulfilled on this very long-time-coming full-on debut, The Electric Word, which augments the Relatives’ familial voices with members of Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears. The added members powerfully facilitate the Relatives’ remarkable… more »

Kirk Franklin, The Essential Kirk Franklin

2011 | Label: Verity Records/Legacy

By Lenny Kaye eMusic Contributor

05.02.12 Like our divided souls, the separation between church and state — for pop music, that would be gospel and secular — is often crossed. So it was when an unidentified “Male Quartette” held a “Camp Jubilee Meeting” on the aptly-titled Little Wonder Records in 1910 and used the words “rock n’ rollin’” in their sermonizing; so it was when Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin ferried across the River Jordan and into the pop charts; and so it is today, when I am side stage at a gospel shout-out in Cleveland… more »

Mary Mary, Something Big

2011 | Label: Columbia

By Chuck Eddy eMusic Contributor

07.28.11 “Walking,” the transcendent hit that’s the centerpiece of this gospel-crossover sister duo’s sixth studio album, is a piano-house sampling, light-soul-harmonizing argument for taking your time. And it’s not alone. “Something Big,” a holy-roller stomp over a Bo Diddley beat, opens the album then makes way for bee-buzzing electro-hopper “Something Bigger”; “Walking” itself precedes the humanely chattered domestic montage “Slow Walk,” then two more delectably nimble pop-soul numbers. The rest of the record owes almost as much to Destiny’s Child as to Jesus Christ. more »